Leaving my mark in Africa, little by little

Ok, so in Sangalkam, my training village during Pre-Service Training, I had an aunt there who was pregnant, Fatu. During the first few weeks I thought either she didn’t like me or that she was just always angry because she had a permanent scowl on her face. However, as the weeks went by and I learned how to say some things and could actually have a basic conversation with her, it turned out that we got along very well. She was due to have her baby in October, the month I swore in, and I was hoping that she would have the baby while I was still living with them, but alas she didn’t.

So when I came back up to Thies for our all-volunteer conference I decided to go and visit Sangalkam because I really liked my family and they are genuinely nice people. They had no idea I was coming for a visit so it was a big surprise to everyone when I just showed up on the compound. When I got there I was warmly greeted by everyone, my host mom even came out running and gave me a hug, which Senegalese people do NOT do. Of course Fatu was there and no longer pregnant, so we began discussing the baby, she is a healthy little girl. Fatu asked me if I wanted to see her and of course I did. As I was led into the baby’s room she asked me if I wanted to know what the baby’s name was, what I heard next just stunned me, she told me she named the baby “Alexandra!!!” That’s right she named her baby after me, I was so touched that I had no idea what to say. I spent the rest of the day with my family and my namesake, whom I must say is one beautiful baby! My own namesake in Africa how cool is that??!!

Update from the last two weeks

Hello everyone, I know I have been MIA for a while but I have been in In-Service training for the past two weeks and after sitting in a classroom for 8 hours a day I haven’t been very up to writing on my blog. So here is a summary of what has happened. I got to Thies on Dec 2nd to attend our all-volunteer conference. Seven of us from Kedougou rented out a sept-place and headed up north. After 12 hours squished in the car we got to Thies only to be overwhelmed by all the people that were there. There were over 200 volunteers at the conference, it was nice to see some friends and it was really motivating to see other volunteers’ projects, but that’s a lot of people. The conference was interesting because we got to choose what sessions we could go to so that was nice change from just going to sessions you’re told to. After the conference my stage had our in-service training which consisted of technical training for 2 weeks. It was a very long two weeks. For the SED (business) volunteers we sat around looking at powerpoints all day long, not the most exciting thing in the world. Some of the sessions were interesting, such as one where we had local and international NGO’s come in and talk about what work they do in Senegal. It was really nice to hear what other work is being done to help the Senegalese people. Other than a few sessions that were actually stimulating, it was pretty boring. However, I did entertain myself by designing some clothes. There’s a tailor in town who is supposed to know how to make more Western style clothes, so everyone bought fabric and went to her. I designed a dress for myself that came out rather cute and I also designed a pant suit for my friend for New Years that came out really well. I’m quite proud of myself.

I had a really nice weekend in Dakar during training. It was our first weekend and there was an artisan expo that the SED volunteers set-up since we are the new volunteers and we were in Thies, we got to go. It was really cool seeing all the different Senegalese artists. Also, while in Dakar I decided to treat myself and I got a hotel room, it was so nice!! It really made me appreciate what we have in the US.

I’m going to take a moment and point out some things that we take for granted but really shouldn't.

1) Water coming out of your faucet. Think about this, when we turn on the faucet in the US we’d be surprised if water didn’t come out. Here people are surprised when it does because it cuts out so frequently.

2) Hot showers/baths. If you have a shower with running water, you never get to experience a hot shower because we don’t have hot water tanks. If you don’t have running water however, you can always leave your bucket out in the sun to heat up the water

3) The option of whether you want it to be warm in your room or cool. The temperature in my room is dictated by the weather outside and if I don’t like it there isn’t much I can do about it.

4) Appreciating the quiet as you go to sleep. For some reason the Senegalese feel the need to make as much noise as possible, either with their mosques’ loud-speaker going all night or their TV’s blaring.

5) The ability to keep your food preserved in a fridge and not worry about it spoiling overnight due to it being too hot or some animal will eat it.

6) Knowing that if some emergency arose help would get to you within minutes as opposed to hours/days.

7) The ability to drink water whenever you want and not having to wait 5 hours for your filter to finish.

8) Being able to sit down at a restaurant and order off the menu and not having to ask “What do you have today?”

9) Not having to decide in the morning if an outfit is appropriate or not by how much of your knee is showing.

10) Street names and addresses. “Keep going till you get to the third mango tree and make a left” is NOT an acceptable form of directions.

Ok now that I have given you some food for thought, I shall continue my store of Dakar. Not only did I get to stay in a hotel, but I got to visit their mall and feel like I was back in American for a few hours. It was nice. After my little American vacation I had to head back to reality and finish my training in Thies. The second week was hard because it seemed like we had been there forever. However, there was a nice little surprise mid-week, it was Tamkharit, the Muslim New Year. One of our trainers invited us to his mother’s house for the New Year to celebrate. We ate some delicious food which consisted of couscous with lamb and chicken, it was amazing. After dinner his family surprised us with ice cream!!! Now the Muslim New Year is interesting because it is a mix between Halloween, Thanksgiving, and New Year all rolled into one. It’s like Halloween because the kids dress up like old people and men dress up as women and they walk around asking for candy, it’s Thanksgiving because you a LOT of food, and it’s like New Years because they party till the break of dawn. It was great to experience it!

I decided to go to Dakar after IST, where I am sitting now writing this, which getting here was an adventure in and of itself. We found out that a train left Thies to Dakar at 6am so we decided to take the train in. We woke up at 5am to finish packing, by 5:45 we were on our way walking to the train station, only about a mile and a half away, with all of our clothes and books that the Peace Corps gave us stuffed into backpacks and suitcases. Once we reached the train station we were informed by some random man sitting outside the train station that the train doesn’t run on Sundays!!! So 17 of us were sitting outside the train station trying to figure out how to get to Dakar. ***(Note to my family: It was like a scene out of the book “How do we get to the zoo?”) Luckily, some of the other volunteers were lazy and had a cab take them the station so we explained to the cab driver our dilemma and the driver told us he could get us a mini-bus to take us. So we all piled into the bus, baggages and all, and headed off to Dakar. We got here around 8am and are just relaxing for the rest of the day. So that is what has been happening for the past two weeks. I will update my blog after the New Year with what I did for Christmas, still not sure what I am going to do for that. Hope you all have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Here were our sleeping arrangements in the hotel. I took up the space that is left on the bed!

Here was part of the view from our hotel!

And here is the Dakar skyline!!

And here is our wonderful New Years Eve dinner!!

Note how excited we all are for the food!

Here are some of the kids "Trick-or-Treating"

Simple things, such as ice cream, bring us great joy in Senegal!!

My Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!! I hope that everyone had a great day and shared it with good people. As for what we did here, well we tried to recreate Thanksgiving as best we could. Everyone in the region came to the regional house to help celebrate. We couldn’t get a hold of any turkey so we bought 10 chickens and 5 ducks. Luckily we had more than enough people willing to kill the animals (frustrations with work and people run high!) so I was spared that task. On Thanksgiving Day we were told to pick a bird and season it, so I head to the cooler and pick out a nice juicy chicken. I took it out of the bag and noticed that one of the guys was nice enough to clean out the insides but to my surprise they did not remove the head nor the feet. So what is a girl to do but grab a meat cleaver and behead the bird herself!! After a few whacks my dinner was no longer starring me in the face. I then proceeded to season the bird and let it marinate. Throughout the day it felt like a real Thanksgiving because there was a lot of food preparation and delicious smells coming from the kitchen. At about 3 pm the guys started throwing the birds on the grill as our final food prep. Around 5 pm everything was done and we had a LOT of meat, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy (I can say that I had a hand in the gravy, but it was just adding hot water to McCormick gravy mix), sweet potatoes, stuffing, biscuits, pumpkin pie, apple pie, and chocolate pie. Now, everything sounds really authentic but I can tell you that all these dishes had a bit of a twist on them, but we did the best we could with what we could find here. After stuffing ourselves silly we did what any other family would do and napped!! Then we played a fun game called Pit which was explained to us as a commodities exchange game with a bell!! I know it sounds like “What the???” but it was actually a lot of fun. After hanging out some more it was time to call it a night and head off home. All in all it was a fun day and we all got a little taste of home.

Starting the preparations for Thanksgiving dinner. Please not the beheaded duck with it's feet off too, that's what I did to my chicken!!

The chickens marinating, some people were inventive and came up with Thai peanut marinade!!

If you think making Thanksgiving dinner in the States is hard, try doing it with no running water and three burners working on the stove. Here some of the girls are helping out by washing dishes so we can continue cooking!

Everyone chilling while things cook and bake.

Here I can contributing my culinary skills by making the gravy :)

The boys grilling up the chickens!

Yummy looking chickens!!

We're about ready to start feasting!!

Everyone sitting down at the dinner table with their plated piled high. Mine's the blue one with everything swimming in gravy. I LOVE gravy!!!

And here is a great picture of one of the volunteers in an after eating food coma, we invited our cleaning lady with her son to come and I guess he picked up the after food coma tradition too!!!

My week in village

So this past week I had a language seminar (where we do 4 intense days of language classes) in Togue. It was quite an interesting time. Togue is a village of about 100 people with nothing to do but pick peanuts. I arrived on Monday morning via Peace Corps car, I am not in good enough shape to bike 40+ km (25 miles) to get there via bike, and was warmly greeted by CJ (one of my fellow Sangalkam people) and his family. Once Jess (another girl from Sangalkam)got there we started to settle in. We took a tour of the village, which took about 10 mins, and then we just hung around CJ’s hut. This was my first experience without running water or electricity. So when night came I pulled out my trusty headlamp (thanks Savario, it’s super bright!!!) and we settled down to have a delicious dinner. CJ’s family decided to kill a chicken that day so we had chicken and rice, which was cooked in the chicken broth, delicious!! My first night was interesting, CJ stayed at his brother’s place where the bed was made out of rice sacks and Jess and I stayed in CJ’s hut. Jess was nice enough to give me his bed while she slept on a mattress on the floor. It wasn’t bad until right before dawn when I was awoken by some creature either flying or scurrying around the hut. I will admit I was too afraid of what it might be to turn on the light and find out what it was so I just plugged me ears and hoped it wouldn’t attack me. Finally down came and I was relieved to see that I was still in one piece. For breakfast every morning, we had some type grain that had the consistency of couscous with spoiled milk and sugar on it, I would eat about 2 bites and then say I’m full. On the second day we had language classes that went all day. For dinner they made some type of sauce that if you add chicken to it would taste exactly like sweet and sour chicken!!!!
On the third day we decided to venture to the nearest shop, which was a 15 min bike ride. Now seeing as how I didn’t bring a bike I had to hop on the back of CJ’s while he tried to maneuver over hills and rocks. Once getting to the “shop” we sat down with the people there and enjoyed a lollipop. It wasn’t much of a shop because it was a shack on the side of the road that sold candy, powdered coffee and milk, and a few other things. On our way back we decided to stop at a stream and dip our feet in and enjoy the surrounding beauty (CJ lives at the base of a mountain). It was nice and peaceful but after about a half an hour we decided to head back. Seeing as how there was no way I was going to be able to sit on the back of CJ’s bike we decided to walk back, that helped us kill about 45 mins of the day. The reason that I couldn’t hop on the back of his bike again is because I had to sit on his luggage rack with my legs bent up so they wouldn’t drag on the ground, not the most comfortable thing and by the time we got to the shop my thighs were on fire!! Once getting back we just rested for the rest of the day. That night though at around 4am (I’m guesstimating) something ran into Jess’s face while she was sleeping on the floor. I woke to her yelling. From that point on I couldn’t really sleep. Luckily it was our last day and I got to come back to the city that afternoon. Also, our toilet/shower situation was less than ideal because CJ has a fence around the area but it goes up to about mid-torso, which it’s fine for a guy to stand in and take a shower but not really a woman, so I had the pleasure of having to squat while throwing water on myself and trying to lather up!! So all in all it was a very interesting experience, but I am very glad in my decision of telling the Peace Corps that I wanted an urban site.

To get to Touge you have to cross over the Gambia river. Here is the "raft" that takes us over.

The Peace Corps car on the raft crossing the Gambia river.

No oars needed on the raft, you just get out and help pull the rope to get across!!

The entrance to the village.

A view of the village. Told you it was small!!!

What does one do without electricity at night, why break out your headlamp and read, but remember to use the red light, helps keep the bugs away :)

Setting up Jessica's bed in CJ's hut. We improvised and used dental floss to hang it up!!

Here was my shower situation, fine for a man, not so great for a woman.

A quick update

So after a few weeks in Kedougou I have started to become used to my city. It is small but it has everything that I need. It’s also nice because I don’t really have to deal with the typical things that you have to in bigger Senegalese city, such as garbage EVERY WHERE, traffic, and constant noise. One thing that I have noticed is that the Senegalese have not figured out a good system of waste removal and therefore throw their garbage on the street or where ever they are standing. Without proper waste removal the cities are littered with trash which gets really bad when it’s the rainy season and there is literally a river of garbage in the street. However, since Kedougou is a smaller city and a new one, it doesn’t suffer from this problem as much. Kedougou is also very bike friendly without a lot of cars on the road, so the only thing that I have to worry about hitting is one of the many goats or sheep lying around or one of the numerous potholes that line the streets!

As for what I have been doing, well not much. At first I was worried that I was the only volunteer sitting around not doing too much and feeling overwhelmed by how to even start tackling the problems that I see and help people. Luckily, I spoke with the other volunteers from my stage (that’s what they call a group of trainees that come in together) and found out that I was not the only one feeling like this. That made me feel somewhat better about the amount of work I was not doing. Also, I figured I didn’t really want to start any major projects now because I will be gone all of December. We have an all volunteer conference up in Thies (where I had my training) and then I have 2 weeks of In-Service training there. After that there’s only one more week till Christmas so I decided I would go visit my roommate from Thies at her site. She’s living in St. Louis and I’ve heard it’s a really nice town because it used to be the former capital of French Africa so apparently it looks like a European city. I figured since I was up north any ways I might as well take the opportunity to visit the city and spend Christmas and New Years with her. As for Thanksgiving I plan on spending it at the regional house with the other Kedougou volunteers. They say that they plan a nice dinner and try to get all the fixings for a real Thanksgiving dinner. Apparently you can get a turkey here so I told one of my fellow volunteers who really wants to kill something that he gets the honor of killing it. So I have some good plans for the holidays.

This week I have a language seminar at one of my fellow volunteer’s sites so I get to spend the next 4 days living in a village of 75 people without electricity and running water (well not that I have that right now either, welcome to the dry season!!) and living off of rice and oil, it should definitely be an experience!!! So that’s a quick update as to what I have been doing for the past month and what my plans are. If I don’t blog before Thanksgiving, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

My new home!!

Here is what my room looks like. I know it's a mess right now, but I'm hoping with some furniture I should be able to organize everything!!!

Here is my bathroom, complete with running water, some of the time. All I need to do now is paint it!!!

Here is the view from my rooftop. In the distance youcan see the mountains of Guinea!!!

Farewells and Swearing-in

Sangalkam crew posing for a picture before our families come for our final lunch!

Hanging out with my host parents for the last time

A picture of all of the families eating an amazing lunch. I just thought you'd like to see some more traditional garb

The Sangalkam group with our host families at our good-bye lunch

My outfit was a gift from my previous host family, not something that I would pick out, but it was nice of them to give it to me. I am receiving my letter saying I am a volunteer!!


My official letter and ID stating that I am a Peace Corps volunteer!!!!

The US ambassador to Senegal and I


The Sangalkam group all dressed up with our language teacher.

Is this a glimpse into the future???

Finally an official volunteer!!!

Well I would first like to start by apologizing for my long absence but I have been quite busy. I officially became a Peace Corps volunteer on Friday, Oct. 15th, before then I was only known as a trainee. We had a great swear-in ceremony at the American ambassador’s house. After speeches from the country director, the ambassador, four new volunteers who did speeches in four different local languages, and then a final word from our training coordinator, we were treated to a delicious reception in the ambassador’s garden when we had pizza, sliders, and sandwiches (which are an awesome treat after eating village food for two months). After the ambassador’s house we went to the American Club for some swimming and beers. After we returned to Thies we treated ourselves to a celebratory dinner at the best restaurant in town, I had escargots and a croque monsieur (the French version of a ham and cheese sandwich). We also split a couple bottles of wine before deciding to go out and kick up our heels. We ended up coming home at 3am, it was a great time!!!

The next day I had to pack up all my stuff in preparation for the long trip to Kedougou on Sunday. We took three sept-places (station wagons from the 70’s that probably haven’t been fixed since then either) down. Luckily, we didn’t have any major mechanical problems except for once where our car started making a funny sound so our driver pulled over, took out a handful of wires from his glove compartment and proceeded to attach them to something in hopes that the car would start again and the problem would be fixed. Alhumduillah (thank God) it worked!!! The other car coming down wasn’t so lucky, they got stranded for a hour on the side of the road with a flat tire that couldn’t be changed because the lugnut was sheared off and a driver who was suffering from dehydration because he decided not to drink any water during an 11 hour car ride in 100 degree weather and no A/C. Once getting to the regional house we had a wonderful reception and dinner prepared by the current volunteers. After getting to know each other for a while, all of us (the new volunteers) decided that it was a long enough day and went to bed. The next day we woke up to go shopping for essentials!!! I proceeded to buy a mattress (they’re not too expensive because they’re just foam), a fan, and a bucket – that’s all my money allowed me to get. After helping others shop it was time for me to install at my home. I packed up a Peace Corps vehicle and went the whole half a mile down the road to my new house.

When I arrived I was introduced to my family, which is not nearly as big as my previous family, I have 3 brothers, a little sister, and a mother. I was given a new Senegalese name, Ania, which is Ann in Polish, so I thought it was quite apropos, it also happens to be my little sister’s name. I found out that one of my brothers is an English teacher so hopefully that will help me learning Pulaar quicker. After introductions I was shown to my room which ended up having its own bathroom!!!(even though it wasn’t done at the time). I then proceeded to settle in and unpack and try to remember what the heck I packed.

The next day my brother informed me that the plumber would come by to finish the bathroom, this would be told to me every day for the next week and a half. While trying to get my bathroom in order I was privileged to witness Senegalese work ethic, which translates to the plumber coming and telling my brothers what needed to be done, him watching them do it, and then after an hour of watching them saying that he was tired and had to go home. One day he just moved my toilet from the hallway into the bathroom, but never hooked it up!! Every time he would leave I would ask my brother if he was coming back later that day to finish and he would say, “He said he would, but we’ll see.” Let’s just say that he never returned after his “exhausting” hour of work. After a week and a half of this though I can proudly say I have a bathroom, that is tiled, has running water (some of the time) and a western toilet!!!

Other than trying to deal with the plumber and the tiler, because that was also a pain, I haven’t done much because one week after installing into the family (this Monday) my host father died (he was a sick, old man) and my family went to the village he is from and has stayed there for the week. They should return this Sunday, but I’m not sure. Luckily I live close enough to the regional house so I go there to cook my meals and talk to people. I have also kept myself busy by buying odds and ends for my place. I am hoping that maybe next month I will have enough money to get some furniture and some paint so I can paint my room and bathroom.

Kedougou is a nice town that is biker friendly so I can get some great exercise while running my daily errands. It’s big enough so that most of my needs are met but small enough where it’s not intimidating. As far as work goes I have been approached by other volunteers with projects they want me to help with, but I was told by the Peace Corps, and I understand why, to take the first 2 months and focus and just getting to know your community and work on practicing the local language. So I am just going to take the first two months to get my bearings and see what opportunities there are in the city.

So the pretty much sums up the past couple of weeks, I will post pictures soon or try to get a Flicker or Picasso account and link it to my page so that I can post more than 5 pictures at a time. Hope all is well with you!!!

Things I have learned over the past two months

So I realized that even though I have only been here for two months I have already learned so much. While I was thinking of how to sun all of it up my girlfriend wrote a great blog posting and I felt that it summed up my experience thus far so well that I was going to copy it and post it.

Here is what I learned:

1) Senegalese Terranga - There is always room for you at the dinner bowl, and your visit to anyone's home if treated with the upmost hospitality
2) Time is relationships not money.Make sure to take the time to say hello
3) I can now take a bucket bath by using only 3/4ths of a standard bucket filled with water!!
4) A lime squeezed onto any dish makes the meal taste so much nicer.
5) How to successfully turn down marriage proposals (saying that you have 4 husbands in the states, or that I will need four houses minimum usually gets the point across!!)
6) Sitting under a mango tree makes any weather 10 degrees cooler
7) When using a Turkish toilet ala latrine, women should use it facing backwards. It's much easier to hit the target
8) Ramadan - a month of reflection, personal growth, and abstinence from our natural attachment to possessions that are meaningless in the grand scheme of life - pretty good idea
9) Communication is 97% nonverbal. The heart speals louder than words
10) Any business can be handled over three cups of tea - the more foam the better

Good-byes and a Senegalese wedding!!

My host parents and I on my last night in Sangalkam

Saying good-bye to my host family. Here is almost my whole compund, there were 30+ people living at my house!!!

My fellow Americans having our last meal at our favorite spot in Sangalkam. May I say it was our favorite place because it was the ONLY place to eat. However, they had amazing fatayas which is dough filled with meat, eggs, french fries, and onions. YUM!!!

Here are the women chilling during my host cousin's wedding.

And here is the lovely bride!!

I am finally done with my Pre-Service training and I will officailly become a volunteer this friday!! I must say I had a tearful good-bye with my host family. They are great people and it was a wonderful welcome into Senegal. This Sunday I will move to my permanent home in Kedougou!

During my last week with my host family I found out that I was going to my host cousin's wedding in Dakar. I was told that we would be leaving at 8am, so I got up at 7am to shower and get ready. Thankfully my host mom lent me some traditional clothing so I wouldn't stick out too much. So at 8am I was ready to hit the road, however, the Senegalese had a different idea of what leaving at 8am means. We sat around until 11:30am when the busses came to pick us up for Dakar. When we got there at 2:30pm (normally it takes an hour but traffic was terrible getting into Dakar) lucnh was served and then I sat around and watched everyone sit around or nap. Around 4pm they told me to go outside and sit under a tarp they had there. I sat there and waited, for what, I wasn't sure yet. Around 4:30 the drums started and the women proceeded to "dance" (pretty much that meant jumping around). They continued for about a half hour and then all the women went to change their clothes. I got to sit around some more and wait for everyone to get ready. We were then given some couscous with a milk sauce to snack on while we waited, again I didn't know for what. At 6:30 the bluching bride FINALLY showed up. I have realized that the Senegalese don't believe that mak-up should look natural and they feel that the more they paint their faces the better they look. When she showed up everyone started taking pitcures with her while I sat around some more. Around 7:30pm wo were served dinner and by 8 I was hurried onto a bus with my family telling me we were going to leave. I still don't know why I was hurried on the bus when I sat on it for a half hour waiting for others to arrive. Finally and 8:30pm we hit the road and by 10:30 I was back home.

I realized that at a Senegalese wedding one sits around a lot and no one ever really knows what is going on.

Update

I just wanted to let everyone know that I am leaving for my last stint with my host family, so I will be MIA for about a week. After that week we will have our swearing in ceremony (if I pass the language test!!!) and then we move into our permanent sites. I wanted to give you all a heads up that if I don't update this blog for a while, I am alive, I just don't have access to the internet right away or I am busy. Hope everyone is doing well and I'll update once I have finally become a Peace Corp volunteer!!!

More pictures of Kedougou

Here is the welcome sign you find welcoming you to my regional house (a place where all volunteers in the region can come hang out with internet and running water)!! NOTE: through the doors is NOT my regional house, there are actually no walls to the house because it is a series of huts

Here is the pet monkey one of the volunteer's family has. I'm actually thinking about getting one of these as a pet for me!

This is the Gambia river that goes through Kedougou. I took this picture as I waited for my warthog sandwich to be prepared.

Here is my delicious warthog sandwich. It's got onions, tomatoes, and BBQ sauce (don't get excited they don't have BBQ sauce in Senegal. This was a gift from one of the volunteer's family's in the States). This sandwich is a MUST when visitng Kedougou!!!

And after a long day of biking around town, having a warthog sandwich, and drinking a beer by the Gambia river, what better way is there to unwind then to apply an avocado and oatmeal mask!!!